


Physical Absence

by KEBKEN



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drabble, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24776662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KEBKEN/pseuds/KEBKEN
Summary: Law touches and feels. His father used to pat him on the back with pride, his mother would pepper his face in warm kisses and his sister would drag him into hugs the same amount he would tug her into his own fragile arms. The touch he gives Lami when he pushes her into the closet by the wall burns like nothing ever has before.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Physical Absence

Touch is an intimate thing. His father used to pat him on the back with pride, his mother would pepper his face in warm kisses and his sister would drag him into hugs the same amount he would tug her into his own fragile arms. The touch he gives Lami when he pushes her into the closet by the wall burns like nothing ever has before. Then Law falls on top of his parents’ dead bodies; the point where they connect on his heaving chest feels lukewarm not at all like it used to. 

The warmth he feels from the hospital set alight makes him want to never feel it’s kind again. So he doesn’t. It’s not a challenge; no one wants to even be close to the diseased child and he finds himself agreeing with all of them. Law can’t stand his own presence either. The corpses that surround him everywhere are barely registered.

The next touch he receives are those of physical violence. The Donquixote Family is not soft nor warm, it’s cold and harsh and full of pain and It is everything Law had ever wanted. Nothing could compare to what he’d lost, so he doesn’t even try to find anything close to it. There is no point. Doflamingo's smiles are cruel but Law feels cared for in a roundabout way that makes him think that he might be fine to die like this, surrounded by people like them. Corazón is the opposite; his kicks and throws make a fire burn deep in his heart that makes him wake up from the numbness he so desperately clings to. Hate is a strong emotion that Law lives every day but seeing a fool play his part while Law was refused his, makes him want to rip everything to shreds.

The knife that burrows itself in the tall man's back gets drenched. Laws small hands are so close to Corazón that he can feel the warmth of his body, the strong beat of his heart. It’s not only Buffalo's scream that tears him away. Law has grown used to the blood as long as it isn’t his own, but when it stains his hands it’s hard to tell the difference.

Corazón doesn’t tell on him and Law begins to feel indifferent about the man during the next years. He doesn’t feel hate nor love and stops thinking about him like he used to. The training Law receives makes him bruise up and he likes the blue-purple and green stains more than the clinically white patches that keep on spreading until his doomsday.

Then Law slips and it feels like a rug is tugged out under his feet. Corazón talks and whisks him away and Law hates every minute of it. He’s tied down, unable to make a decision for himself and paraded around in front of an army of doctors like an animal or puzzle to be solved when he is neither. He is Law and he’s sick and it makes him even sicker to think about it all. But now there’s little more to do. Moving hurts, he suddenly has a lot of time and when the clown is not busy trying to distract him, all Law has is himself. It’s been that way for years now. 

“ You were the one in pain,” Corazón said and Law fails to see the selfishness of the man shedding tears behind his back. What he is given is scraps but he is starving and clings to them like nothing else. The black mass of feathers surrounds him like the omen it is when he is too sick to move and for the first time in years, the warmth of the body around him doesn’t remind him of all the things he’s lost.

Corazón dies and Law can’t even get himself to run as he cries out in pain. Amidst the snow and the sea, he feels the warmth of his own limbs. His body is alive.


End file.
